10 Aug Review – Film Geek

Film Geek (2005) was actually a pretty good watch. It is the story of Scotty Pelk, an incredibly dorky movie-obsessed young lad who makes people so uncomfortable he is fired from his job at a video store. He has a little bit of trouble adjusting until he befriends Niko (Tyler Gannon), gets really drunk with some guys, and starts getting more hits on his movie review webpage.

I found myself really despising the female characters in this movie. The first “lovely” lady we are introduced to is Cindi (Michelle Garner), a tan-orexic blond with a penchant for being rude to awkward young men and poop play. Luckily, Scotty falls out of love with Cindi soon after she kidnaps the movie he rents for her, “Femme Fatale” (that’s not an obvious allusion). Meanwhile Niko, Scotty’s guiding light into the world of normal, is also a little bit horrible and condescending to her new movie-obsessed friend. She enjoys her time with him, but then continually refuses to answer his calls. Her change of heart does not make me admire her character. It just makes me wonder how someone can be rude to the weird kid in the first place.

If anything, Film Geek is a little bit of a coming of age story. Scotty is just a dorky guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of movies. Then, he gets fired and meets a lady and his life changes forever. She forces him to step outside of himself and do things he had never thought of. This behavior was the most funny when Scotty partook in drugs and alcohol for the first time. His first hit of Niko’s marijuana cigarette is possibly the single greatest moment of the movie. There are not many things funnier than someone coughing so hard drool starts waterfalling out of their mouth.

As a film geek (though with much less knowledge than Scotty) I appreciated his little obsessions and dorky film moments. He understands the value of watching a movie in letterbox and is the first to explain it to whatever uninterested customer he can find. I found myself feeling so guilty for him because no one else seemed to care about his passions, his stupid jerk boss, Mr. Johnson (John Breen) went as far as to call it “useless trivia about stupid stuff”. His obsession made him endearing and I just really wanted to hang out with him.

Film Geek was a great film for any who knows what it feels like to be in love with something and for no one to understand (Care Bears). It spoke to the film geek in me and will definitely speak to the film geek in you, even if the film geek in you thinks Melies is a weird alcoholic beverage. As Scotty says in his blog post, “Why I love Film by Scotty Pelk”, “movies are another place. Movies let you be other people”. I enjoyed being Scotty Pelk for a little bit and I’m sure you will as well.